


There And Back Again

by quas_i



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-17 12:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10594455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quas_i/pseuds/quas_i
Summary: Sometimes it takes being years and an ocean apart. Sometimes it takes going away and coming back for things to work out the way they are supposed to. Sometimes it isn’t worth the effort, but sometimes it is.Tsukishima and Kuroo in reverse.





	

They say that hindsight is 20/20, and Tsukishima is inclined to believe them. This isn’t about regrets or wanting to fix past mistakes, or maybe it is, just a little bit. More than that, Tsukishima thinks that they make a lot more sense having heard the ending first.

 

_xi._

Tsukishima has a book in one hand as the other one gently cards through the apocalyptic mess that Kuroo calls hair. The afternoon light streams through an open window framed by off-white curtains. There is the distant sound of Tokyo traffic and an electric kettle boiling away in the kitchen.

It’s a nice spring afternoon. Kuroo has long since dozed off in Tsukishima’s lap. The sticky bowls from their lunch are piled up in the sink, and Tsukishima doesn’t plan on getting up anytime soon to deal with it. It’s all very nice.

There is no reason for a sudden epiphany. Tsukishima doesn’t mean to sound dramatic, but that’s generally how epiphanies work, right? Epiphanies are meant for life or death situations or at least moments of great change. What Tsukishima is trying to say is that this simply wasn’t a day for epiphanies, but life has rarely gone the way Tsukishima expects it to, so he doesn’t suppose that this should be any different.

He has a book in one hand and Kuroo’s head in his lap. Nonsensically, he thinks about the dishes in the sink (two bowls, two glasses, two sets of chopsticks, and the expectation that he’ll be washing them eventually), his clothes in the bottom drawer of Kuroo’s dresser, and the spare key he has hanging between his own key and a dinosaur keychain that he didn’t buy. This accumulation of small insignificant facts is startling enough that he almost drops his book onto Kuroo’s sleeping face.

But Tsukishima isn’t fifteen anymore, so he doesn’t drop the book. He sets it onto the armrest of that sagging blue couch and thinks. He expects this kind of realization, this kind of epiphany, to be accompanied by rising panic, but it isn’t. He feels strangely calm about it all as he stares down at Kuroo and thinks, “Oh, I’m probably in love with him, aren’t I?”

Tsukishima isn’t fifteen anymore. He is twenty-five and way too old to lie to himself and call it preservation. He used to think that being in love with someone entailed some sort of inevitability. He thinks as he sits in Kuroo’s apartment all of twenty-five years old that maybe love isn’t about inevitability. Maybe it’s about a choice.

When he was fifteen, he was a coward, and he didn’t feel like he had much of a choice. The two of them drowned under expectations of what they were supposed to be. They shied away from labels like love and relationship because at the time it felt too big for what they were. Now at twenty-five, Tsukishima thinks that it might finally fit, but he doesn’t feel panicked about it.

He tilts his head to the side and studies the man taking up three-fourths of the couch. Kuroo has a terrible habit of twitching his leg like a Charlie’s horse while he sleeps. It has given Tsukishima more bruises on his shins than he can count. Right now Kuroo kicks suddenly, knocking a cushion off the couch. It takes Tsukishima a while to realize that he was smiling this whole time, small and fond.

This is an epiphany, and they will talk about it because they aren’t teenagers anymore, but it can wait. It can wait until the tea is done, until Kuroo wakes up, until Tsukishima has done the dishes. Tsukishima smiles again. He picks up his book and puts his hand back into Kuroo’s hair. He isn’t sure where they’re headed, but it feels a lot better this time around. It feels like a choice.

 

_x._

There’s enough of a chill to the night to put Tsukishima on edge. He feels a little like the mug of coffee Kuroo has balanced on the balcony banister, his skin and nerves pulled taut by the cold.

He feels all too alert and aware, his mind focusing in on random things. He probably should’ve grabbed a jacket before coming out. There’s a bird that has elected to make a nest in the tree next to Tsukishima’s balcony. The distance between their arms as they lean against the black banister is infuriating. At the same time, it’s too close and too far apart. Tsukishima doesn’t know whether to move or to stand still, and if he does move, should he move away or closer?

“Damn, it’s cold outside,” Kuroo complains with a quiet laugh.

“We could very well go inside,” Tsukishima points out.

“We could,” Kuroo agrees. Neither of them move to get up.

They fade back into a tense silence, and Tsukishima wants to scream and yell, kick over a potted plant, anything to break the solemn mood that’s fallen over his balcony.

“How was work?” Kuroo asks, his voice piercing in the quiet cold.

Tsukishima sighs all of a sudden. He feels his shoulders sag, and he leans forward until he can rest his head in his arms and stare down at the pavement far below. “What are we doing?”

“Um, sitting?” Kuroo answers, seemingly confused.

“No, what are we doing, Tetsu?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Tsukishima laughs, one part panicked and two parts desperate. “It’s been six years, and you invited me to coffee, and all of a sudden we’re meeting up every week, and now we’re sitting on my balcony at 9 pm.” He looks up and forces himself to look Kuroo in the eyes, to take this head on like he rarely does with anything. “Testu, what are we doing?”

“We’re catching up, hanging out. You know, like friends,” Kuroo tries and his explanation sounds feeble and flimsy.

“Cut the bullshit,” Tsukishima snaps, harsh and unrelenting. He leaves neither of them any room for denial.

“What would you have me say?” Kuroo bites back.

They’re too alike. That’s always been their problem, and when they fight, it hurts like hell because that’s how the two of them are. It definitely stings to hear Kuroo echoing those same words to Tsukishima again.

All the frustration leaves Tsukishima’s body at once. He doesn’t know what he wants Kuroo to say. He blurts out what he’s been wanting to say instead.

“I’m sorry.”

Kuroo stares at Tsukishima as if he’s never seen him before, and maybe he hasn’t. Kuroo hasn’t seen the Tsukishima that laid awake at night months down the line worrying and wondering about everything that he did wrong, about everything he could’ve done differently. About everything he was so, so sorry about and how he would apologize if he were given the chance.

Tsukishima stares at the building across the street, allowing his fingers to tangle together on top of the banister. “For snapping.” He takes a deep breath and braces himself for what comes next. “And for back then. It was my fault. I was scared, and I didn’t know what I wanted, and I took that out on you. I’m sorry.”

“No.” Kuroo shakes his head, and in that moment, Tsukishima would’ve done anything to make the sad, tired lines around his eyes disappear. “It’s my fault, too. I was expecting a lot, but I never said anything. I assumed you would understand me anyway, but I think I was just too scared.”

They were both young and scared, and Tsukishima doesn’t want to admit it, but he’s still scared shitless. Tsukishima isn’t naive enough to believe that they’re the same people they were. They’ve both changed. Six years ago, they never would’ve had this conversation. They would never have been so terrifyingly honest, but since running into Kuroo months ago, Tsukishima can feel himself falling in love all over again. He still wants Kuroo so much that it hurts.

Tsukishima laughs. He can’t help it. Kuroo turns to him, startled and bewildered.

“We were a mess, weren’t we?” Tsukishima says, between borderline hysterical giggles.

Kuroo just keeps staring at him, but Tsukishima doesn’t even notice. He has his eyes squeezed shut against the starry night, letting this weird, uncharacteristic laughter loose into the night.

Many things happen at once. Tsukishima opens his eyes. He opens his mouth to say something. Maybe another apology. Maybe something else. The world will never know now. Kuroo moves, closing the damnable distance between them. It’s messy and desperate, and their teeth clack together uncomfortably. But some emotion still swells in Tsukishima’s chest, and it feels like coming home.

After a lifetime that only lasts a couple of minutes, Tsukishima pulls away. He’s been backed into the banister, the metal digging uncomfortably into his lower back.

“What are we doing, Tetsu?” he asks.

“Being brave,” Kuroo answers.

 

_ix._

Tsukishima hasn’t been back in Japan all that long, and it’s annoying. He is, above all else, a creature of routine. He likes knowing a city well. He likes having places to consider his own havens of quiet and solitude, and that type of comfort only comes with months spent in one place.

He has never lived in Tokyo before, and even the scenery of Miyagi and Sendai has changed in the time he was abroad. He clicks his tongue in annoyance as he stares at the half-loaded map on the screen of his phone.

“Tsukishima?”

Tsukishima’s head snaps up, and his breath catches in his throat without his permission because he knows that voice. He still has recordings of that voice on his computer. He may or may not have downloaded one of those songs onto his iPod and listened to it on the plane ride back. He may or may not have stopped halfway through that song, sick to his stomach with longing and his own weakness.

He schools his expression into something more neutral as he turns around. “Kuroo-san.”

It’s been six years, but here is Kuroo Tetsurou walking along some random street in Tokyo. Kuroo steps in closer as if he can’t believe what he’s seeing. His face breaks into that same slanted grin as he says, “Tsukki, it is you. Wow, when did you get back to Japan?”

Tsukishima must have said something in response because they are now exchanging ‘how have you been?’s and ‘what are you up to?’s. More of Tsukishima’s attention is drawn to the dark ink of a tattoo peeking out from the collar of Kuroo’s shirt and trailing down his left sleeve. He wonders slightly when that happened and regrets that he has now given up the right to know things like that.

“What were you doing before I interrupted you anyway?” Kuroo asks.

“I was looking for a quiet place to read, but I got a little lost,” Tsukishima admits shrugging.

Kuroo runs a hand through his hair and stares at Tsukishima through his messy fringe, and Tsukishima kind of hates how that motion still strikes him as familiar.

He says, “I know a coffee place nearby. I could show you around, and we could maybe catch up?”

Tsukishima stares at him and his familiar actions and all the things that have changed (like that tattoo but also simpler things like the wider span of his shoulders and the quiet certainty that didn’t exist before). He thinks all of a sudden, “If you say yes now, you might never want to stop.”

“Sure,” he says, and Kuroo’s responding grin is just electrifying enough to make Tsukishima forget.

 

_viii._

America is different. That’s about all Tsukishima has to say about that.

(Sometimes. Only sometimes. He misses Japan so much it hurts.)

He Skypes his family every week and tries to get in contact with Yamaguchi as often as their schedules allow. Kageyama and Hinata seem to remember to talk to him every once in a blue moon. Yachi sends him tips on studying, and for his birthday, she sent him a care package all the way from Japan that included a yearly planner which probably saved Tsukishima’s ass sophomore year. He’s trying, and that’s more than you can say for Tsukishima most of the time.

Other people drift in and out of his awareness, but the people who he does stay in touch with always try to keep him somewhat updated on life in Japan. Sometimes Yamaguchi will tell him about Kuroo in a casual enough manner that Tsukishima can brush it off as nothing. These moments make him feel immensely grateful to have friends. He doesn’t know how he managed it, but he is so, so glad to have these people in his life that sometimes he feels paralyzed by how much he misses them.

 

_vii._

It is 2pm at the Tokyo International Airport, and Tsukishima is about to leave behind every familiar thing he’s ever known. Who knew that things like pride and ambition once caught aren’t easily shaken off? The pesky habit that Karasuno seems to have ingrained into his very being is taking him to college an ocean away.

He’s sitting at the gate, bored and anxious, with his earphones firmly atop his head and his carry-on suitcase next to him. It is 2pm at the Tokyo International Airport when his phone buzzes with a text message.

**Kuroo**  
_Have a safe flight. Good luck._

Tsukishima stares at the preview banner for a very long time, clicking the home button every time the screen goes dark. In the end, he never responds. He turns on airplane mode.

For all his bad premonition, they fell apart so quietly in the end.

 

_vi._

Kuroo whistles quietly and only one note with both eyebrows raised. “America, huh? America’s really far away.”

“Way to state the obvious, Tetsu.” Tsukishima rolls his eyes. He pretends that he doesn’t get what Kuroo is trying to say.

“You think you’ll get into the program?”

Tsukishima shrugs, looking away from Kuroo. Maybe he shouldn’t have broken the news in a crowded restaurant and waited until they got back to Kuroo’s dorm. Maybe he should’ve brought this up a while ago--before he’d already gone ahead and filled out half the application and lined up all his recommendations and test scores.

“Who would’ve thought that someone who used to be so allergic to ambition could come up with a plan like this?” Kuroo says. He’s going for teasing and landing somewhere too far to the left. It’s not that he doesn’t make it to teasing, but almost like he overshot it, and now it just sounds all weird.

“Shut up.” Tsukishima smiles a little falsely and rolls his eyes again, going through the motions, letting Kuroo believe that his attempt at teasing is working.

“Still,” Kuroo’s face falls. No more attempts, “America. I kind of thought--I mean I assumed--”

Kuroo trails off and part of Tsukishima is tempted to bite back, “What? What did you assume? Did you expect me to apply to the same school as you? To apply to a school in Tokyo? Don’t be foolish.”

But Tsukishima doesn’t do that. His words can be biting, but he’s never been good at confrontation. Not when it matters. Not when he cares. Tsukishima has never been one for confrontation when it comes to the people he likes, to the choice few that he’s allowed in, so he downs the rest of his coffee, which has gone cold at this point, and it burns bitter the whole way down. He gets up and reaches out his hand and says, “Come on, Tetsu. Let’s head back.”

He pretends that he doesn’t see Kuroo open his mouth to say something. He pretends that he’s not so desperate to get moving because he can see the question dancing on Kuroo’s lips, the unanswerable question hanging in the air between them.

(If I asked you to stay, would you?)

Tsukishima is eighteen and planning to leave the country, and he’s never been good at confrontation.

 

_v._

By the time third year rolls around, the five of them are no strangers to study sessions, so it’s not surprising that when it came time to study for entrance exams, they’ve once more gathered in bookstores and living rooms alike. As per usual, it is part studying and part trying to shove information into the heads of the volleyball idiots in the hopes that something will stick eventually.

If anything, Tsukishima cares even less than he normally does, and the volleyball idiots are putting forth even less effort. Kageyama and Hinata have both been offered sports scholarships and will only need a halfway decent grade to keep those offers. Yamaguchi and even Yachi, ever the saint, realize this and are far more worried for themselves.

Yamaguchi appears to have begun an attempt to physically merge with his textbook, and Tsukishima harbors a suspicion that Yachi has pulled out six years worth of notes to compile. The oddball duo had been sent on a snack run to work off some of their seemingly endless energy.

After a while, long enough for Tsukishima to become increasingly sure that Hinata and Kageyama have gotten lost, Yachi heaves a great big sigh, her small shoulders slumping in defeat.

“Maybe we should call it a day,” Yamaguchi suggests, closing his textbook. His forehead is sporting some ink from when he’d fallen asleep on his notes.

“That sounds like a good idea,” Yachi admits reluctantly. “I’m just so worried about the entrance exams, and Spring High’s just around the corner, too.”

“We’ll be fine,” Tsukishima says with more conviction than he’s used to. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Yamaguchi grinning as if he were a proud mother or something else equally ridiculous. It is too late, and Tsukishima is too tired to let that slide. “Besides Spring High and entrance exams are the same. If you aren’t already somewhat prepared, it’s too late to play catch up.”

Yamaguchi sighs. “Tsukki,” he says admonishingly. However, the effect is ruined by his lingering smile. “Anyway I’m going to go ahead and look for Hinata and Kageyama. They probably got lost.”

Yachi laughs as Yamaguchi leaves. Tsukishima can still hear the ringing of her laughter and his best friend stumbling about in the entrance hall when she says, “You’re still the same, Tsukishima-kun.”

“Am I?” He phrases the question here teasingly. Yachi will often say things and become flustered when asked to clarify them. Part of him genuinely wonders, “Am I? Am I still the same? Is that a bad or a good thing? Why do people keep changing?”

Perhaps Yachi has changed, or perhaps it is too late, and she is too tired as well. She tilts her head thoughtfully and says, “In a lot of ways, yes but also in a lot of ways, no.”

“That clears things up,” Tsukishima snorts.

“Oh, leave me alone. It’s late,” Yachi smiles and begins straightening the papers and books into piles: Hinata, Kageyama, Tsukishima, Yamaguchi, and herself. She’s flipping through some of his notes and asks, “You’re probably applying to Tokyo schools, aren’t you?”

Tsukishima feels a surge of annoyance, one that he’s become intimately familiar with recently. “And why would I do that?”

“To be closer to Kuroo-san,” Yachi says in a way that grates on his nerves. It’s too matter-of-fact.

“Just because I’m dating him doesn’t mean I have to revolve my earth around him.” He begins helping the effort to organize the table, but his movements are too snappy, too irritated.

Yachi allows him to all but snatch his notebook from her hands as she says, “I know.”

“I could very well go to school somewhere else away from him.”

“I know.”

“It’s not a requirement or something.”

“I know.”

Tsukishima roughly shoves things into his backpack and uncharitably wishes that Yachi were as easy to startle as when they first met. She was constantly intimidated by him. Now she’s the calm one and he feels off-balance, tilted.

“Are things okay with you and Kuroo-san?” She asks, her eyebrows furrowed in concern.

“We’re fine,” Tsukishima sighs, trying to reign in his unruly emotions. Being an asshole to Yachi isn’t going to fix anything. “I’m just tired.”

“Okay,” she doesn’t seem like she believes him, but it is late, and they are tired, and she lets it slide. “Where are you thinking about applying then?”

Tsukishima is quiet for a long while or maybe it’s just him and no time has passed at all. He hates these assumptions. He’s only 18, and he feels trapped. He hates that Kuroo has this power over him. He hates that Kuroo has the ability to make or break his day, that he has such control over Tsukishima’s emotions. He’s only 18, and he doesn’t want to be tethered to another human being like this. He hates it.

He makes a choice. “America. I’m thinking about applying to a school in America.”

“Wow, that’s amazing. Good luck, Tsukishima-kun.” Yachi smiles brightly, unaware of the dark, swirling thoughts behind this choice.

“Thank you,” he mumbles.

He made a choice. He should be comforted by this thought. Choices mean decisiveness and control. This should be comforting, but the thing about choices is that you don’t always make the right ones, and that’s the really scary part.

 

_iv._

“It’s too hot for this,” Tsukishima complains, running a hand through his hair and grimacing at the sweat that comes with it.

“Well, good news is that these are the last of the boxes. Unpacking can happen inside in the AC,” Akaashi says placatingly, but the older boy isn’t faring all that much better. His normally neat black hair is frizzing in the humidity, and even Akaashi’s poker face can’t hide the exhaustion of lifting boxes all morning.

“Bokuto and I can handle the unpacking by ourselves over the next couple of days,” Kuroo says, coming up to wrap an arm around Tsukishima’s waist.

Tsukishima leans back into the touch instinctively. He blames it on the heat and how charmingly disheveled Kuroo looks with his shirt sleeves rolled up and his hair pulled under a snapback.

“Yeah, thanks for helping out, guys,” Bokuto cheers, bounding into the living room.

Bokuto being Bokuto had completely abandoned his shirt about an hour ago and nearly gave his and Kuroo’s new neighbor a heart attack. Tsukishima can’t quite stop the wince at the reminder that they are in Kuroo and Bokuto’s new apartment and the two headaches are now rooming together. Tsukishima thinks it’s a terrible idea. Akaashi is holding out hope on the desperate theory that if they have a space to expend all the chaotic energy created when they are in the same vicinity, they will actually be calmer when out and about in the world. Kenma is, thankfully, on Tsukishima’s side for this one.

“We should take a break. Order in some pizza and just chill,” Kuroo suggests.

Bokuto already has his phone out before Kuroo even finishes his sentence, and the duo begin bickering about pizza toppings. Tsukishima sighs and sits down on the blessedly cold, wooden floors. He closes his eyes and hears Akaashi drop down beside him, the denouement of the pizza argument, the wind whistling in through the window.

“How are you doing, Tsukishima?” Akaashi asks.

Tsukishima opens his eyes and makes eye contact with Kuroo who has his snapback and his smirking grin and a phone to his ear. He raises an eyebrow and gives Tsukishima a short wave. He says, “I’m happy.”

And the strangest part is that he is. In that one moment, he is unfailingly happy. His second year of high school is going swimmingly, the Karasuno volleyball team is blossoming under Ennoshita, and he just spent Golden Week helping his boyfriend move to a new apartment, which he has already been given the key to. Sometimes Tsukishima still kisses Kuroo like he’s afraid of being left. He doesn’t know why he seems to constantly be waiting for the other shoe to drop, but in that afternoon, he is simply happy.

 

_iii._

They are sitting on Kuroo's couch. It's a sagging blue thing with mismatched cushions and a quilt hanging off the back. The afternoon light streams through an open window framed by yellow curtains. There is the far off sound of Tokyo traffic and an electric kettle boiling away in the kitchen.

Tsukishima sits with his back against the armrest and his long legs tucked as close to his body as possible. He clenches his fingers into small fists on top of his knees and his toes dig into the sagging blue couch as he tries his best to ground himself. Kuroo sits normally, his legs crossed at the knee, his chin resting in his hand as he stares out the open window framed by yellow curtains.

It’s March now, and they haven’t seen each other since the end of Spring High and the beginning of entrance exam craziness for Kuroo. They are finally sitting on Kuroo's couch. Finally, after all this time they are together, and Tsukishima has never been more terrified because what if they had gotten used to the distance? What if Tsukishima is only good at this whole relationship thing when he is far away? What if when they are finally in the same space, they won't know what to do?

And Tsukishima really doesn't know what to do. He thought that he had so much to tell Kuroo. There's only so many words you can fit into a text message, into a phone call. You can't make hugs out of words or kisses out of sentences. You can't close the distance between two people with language alone, but now that they are on the same sagging blue couch, Tsukishima has never felt further away from the other boy.

Tsukishima closes his eyes and takes a deep breath because his chest feels like collapsing space. It feels like a sinkhole, like a tsunami, like missing a step on the stairs when you trusted the ground to catch you. His fingers and his toes are turning white-knuckled in their grip, and he doesn't know what to do.

His breath is coming in short bursts and his eyes are still closed when Kuroo reaches out to take Tsukishima's hand in his own. Tsukishima's fingers immediately melt under the warmth of Kuroo, and his breathing eases.

"Hey, Tsukki," Kuroo says with a fragile smile that spells out every emotion Tsukishima had been experiencing since arriving at Kuroo's apartment. "I missed you."

Tsukishima gasps. He springs forward from the armrest of that sagging blue couch and pulls Kuroo into a hug.

"I've missed you, too." Tsukishima whispers as he turns his head to kiss Kuroo on the lips.

Kuroo laughs, pulling back a little to look Tsukishima in the eyes. He's still smiling soft and fond when he says, "You're not alone in this, okay? You've got me. I'm right here."

Tsukishima doesn't know whether to laugh or cry, so he makes a choked sound from the back of his throat and leans in for another kiss. Kuroo is right. He's right there, and Tsukishima had somehow forgotten to consider that Kuroo might be as terrified as he is. he doesn't want this to end, but he's terrified that a painfully drawn-out ending might be the only thing in store for them. Kissing Kuroo now with their legs tangled together and the sounds of traffic and a boiling kettle, Tsukishima is reassured in the knowledge that at least, for now, he's not alone.

 

_ii._

“I like you, and I kind of really want to make out with you. Is that okay?” Kuroo asks without any hint of his usual smirks and teases. The volleyball captain is a nuisance, a hurricane, a terrible idea, and yet Tsukishima is completely swept up by him.

So he simply nods and lets Kuroo kiss him with soft, chapped lips against the Nekoma school wall, all the while thinking, “This will not end well.”

If you’d told Tsukishima a year ago that he would give his first kiss away to a thunderstorm with messy black hair and too many words, he would’ve called you an idiot, but he’s not exactly the same boy he was a year ago.

A lot has changed since the beginning of high school. Somewhere along the way, Tsukishima started caring, and all of his meticulously constructed walls are falling away. The boy currently making his knees weak with the softness of their kiss certainly had a lot to do with it.

At the same time, Tsukishima hasn’t changed enough. He’s never been one to begin something if there wasn’t some sort of guarantee in its success, and there’s a considerable part of him screaming at him to run away while he still can. He doesn’t know why he said yes, why he’s allowing Kuroo to mold their bodies together on a late summer day in the shade of another school’s building like he never wants to let Tsukishima go.

Well, that part is a lie. Tsukishima knows exactly why he’s letting this slide. It has everything to do with the way his heart feels like it’s been struck by lightning every time Kuroo looks at him, the way he can’t help his smile when he gets a text all the way from Tokyo, the way that he’s already let himself fall this far so he might as relinquish all of his control.

The only thing causing him hesitation is the knowledge that eventually, Kuroo will leave. The other boy has college and other friends and the rest of his life waiting for him. He doesn’t need Tsukishima, and one day, he’s going to realize this, and Tsukishima doesn’t know if he can pick up the pieces when that happens, doesn’t know if he wants to find out exactly how easy it would be for Kuroo to erase him.

Despite all his misgivings, Tsukishima doesn’t pull away, and the blinding smile Kuroo gives him afterwards is just electrifying enough to make him forget.

 

_i._

Tsukishima sweeps a calculating gaze over the Nekoma volleyball team. His sight catches on black spikes and a taunting smirk, and he thinks, “That is an apocalyptic mess.”

He thinks, “If you start now, you might never want to stop.”

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this has been in my drafts for a very long time. I added a scene or two and decided good enough so here it is in all its flawed glory.


End file.
